More Than Just a Yiddish Mama

The old Jewish proverb that “God could not be everywhere, so He created mothers” indicates the high level of esteem that the Jewish woman and mother has traditionally experienced. However, her idealized image is crassly contradicted by the contemporary clichés about her. The negative stereotype of the Jewish Mother arose during the 1950s in the United States. Jewish authors contributed to this image by characterizing her as the dominant, nagging woman who especially exerts pressure her children through obsessive care and continually wagging the moral index finger. How was it possible for this caricature of Jewish motherliness to develop?
Rachel Monika Herweg – author of the German-language book Die jüddische Mutter. Das verborgene Matriarchat (The Jewish Mother: The Hidden Matriarchy) – explains how the image of the Jewish mother became a negative cliché particularly in the American world during the past decades “with the loss of a multitude of social functions that the woman performed in traditional Judaism: The living conditions within the modern, industrialized affluent society have led to her traditional behavior patterns and strategies that once were urgently necessary for the survival of the Jewish community suddenly being seen as meaningless and worthless by the majority of the people.”



Cold-Hearted and Unloving
“Like most Jewish children in Eastern Europe, I had two mothers: the weekday mother who was monopolized by her work in the kitchen and the business; on the Sabbath she changed into a different mother: radiant and approachable.” This excerpt was written by Elie Wiesel. Born in Romania in 1928 and raised in Hasidic-Orthodox circles, he personally experienced the last days of the Eastern European shtetl. His description of the Jewish mother, which is objective and does not seem judgmental in any way, probably expresses the heart of her image as it has developed since the beginnings of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature in the 1960s – in contrast to the highly honored and much-praised mother and guardian of the home in the traditional picture of rabbinic literature. The former is a stereotype of the unapproachable, cold-hearted, and unloving mother who fails to give her children emotional warmth, attention, and parental care. While her husband is absorbed in the spiritual sphere of his Talmud  and Torah studies or unsuccessfully strives to earn a livelihood, she – completely drained and overworked – is solely possessed by the thought of securing the physical survival of her family.

With the beginning of the establishment of associations in the late 18th and early 19th century, men and some individual women succeeded in entering an area that allowed them to arrange and postulate their interests in a way that brought them publicity. The Israelite Charitable Women’s Association, founded in 1816 in Vienna, was considered the precursor of numerous other Jewish women’s associations. The name itself already indicates the primary sphere of activity for the women: charity. Although the Jewish women’s associations were largely in the hands of the women, their involvement was intended to be effective in the areas from which the state had withdrawn such as the fight against poverty and the social welfare work. The sphere of activity for the women’s associations was only expanded starting around 1860s. Starting at the turn of the century, they also became involved in topics such as gainful female employment, the improvement of the societal position of women, and the political right to vote. Umbrella organizations were finally developed In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland that united all of the women’s associations at the turn of the 20th century. Although the Jewish women’s associations became members of these umbrella organizations, their denomination was usually hidden on purpose. The history of the Swiss Union of Jewish Women’s Organizations and its developments, innovations, and changes in its sphere of activity can be traced from its founding in 1924 to the most recent past. During its first phase until 1933, the Union was primarily involved in philanthropic tasks as a purely charitable organization. In the following years until the end of the Second World War, these voluntary services were primarily dominated by aid to refugees. The Union had a stronger political orientation after the war and professionalized and nationalized its social services. It achieved its zenith as a nationally and internationally recognized representative for the interests of Jewish Swiss women at the end of the 1970s. Even today, its focus is on the problems of the Jewish minority so that a re-evaluation of the traditional role of women in Judaism, as well as the decision for professionalization of the political commitment must also be carried out.

Mendele Mocher Sforim (1835–1917), a child of the shtetl and creator of modern Yiddish and Hebrew literature, also confronts the reader in his autobiographically tinged narrative The Calf with an apparently heartless monster of a mother who sends her son to a distant yeshiva so that his peasant behavior of romping around with a young calf is driven out of him. When the lad can no longer bear it in that foreign place due to homesickness and a longing for motherly affection and comes home for one day, his mother has no tender words or caresses for him. Scholem Alejchem (1859–1916), who called himself the “grandson of Mendele” and likewise grew up in the shtetl, describes a bickering, quarrelsome mother in his autobiography: She is so occupied with the daily occurrences in her little store that she only pays attention to her children when they are sick. The series of anti-mothers – and the subsequent negatively distorted female figures – could be continued on and on at this point. Their stereotypical depiction culminates in the mother who smothers her infant because she cannot stop it from crying. However, the negative image does not replace the rabbinic ideal of the faithful caring and loving mother. Instead, it reflects and exaggerates the actual circumstances, just as the memories of Eastern Jewish immigrants prove to be a subjectively experienced neglect by their mothers.

Against the Orthodoxy
By breaking with the traditional role of the Jewish wife and mother who is always understanding as she gives, provides loving care, and masters every life situation, the works of the Haskalah authors turn against an orthodoxy that had clung to its way of life with rigidity and in spite of the existing circumstances in view of the shtetl that was in the process of demise. At the same time, they point to an increasing discrepancy that soon could no longer be bridged between the intellectual ideal and the real-life circumstances. This discrepancy inevitably had to lead to changed needs such as the striving for inner autonomy, which is what it subsequently also did.
In the opinion of the Haskalah authors, the American literature written by the Eastern Jewish immigrants and primarily their sons during the first half of the 20th century displayed a deeply foreign and resistive sentimental recollection of the traditional values of Jewish motherliness. In Abraham Cahan’s novel The Rise of David Levinsky (1917), David’s mother dies before she reaches the New World. David remembers her selfless devotion and love. Her strength-giving and protective influence accompanies him throughout his life in America. A veneration of the mother that can hardly be surpassed is the novel Call It Sleep by Henry Roth (1934). He nourishes the mythos of motherly protection against the horrors and dangers of a strange environment. Completely committed to the values of the Old World and abstaining from any closeness with American society – even in terms of the language – Mrs. Schearl is selfless, courageous, and proudly dignified as she masters all of the difficulties that arise and creates a domestic refuge of Jewish tradition and Yiddish language against the threatening outside world for her son David.

The Mythos of the Jewish Mother
Dan Greenburg has processed all aspects of the more recent cliché of the Jewish mother in his How To Be a Jewish Mother guide using a subtle humorous approach in a pseudo-scientific manner with practical exercises. It was originally published in 1964 in Los Angeles and already appeared two years later in Great Britain. In it, he writes the following about the author: “Dan Greenburg grew up in Chicago, studied art at the University of Illinois, received a Master of Arts and then threw a wonderful education right out the window and became a writer. Though 29 years of age, he is still unmarried and does not know how to stand up straight or eat properly.” In other words: Dan Greenburg is the typical child and “victim” of a “Jewish mother” in America; as such, he is practically predestined to provide the reader with deep insights into her stereotypical nature.
The “Jewish mother” restrains and controls the feelings of her children. She turns the bad experiences that cause them to be sad into something good according to the motto of “adversity is the school of wisdom” but twists things in the opposite direction with regard to good experiences. This proven technique produces a sense of insecurity in the children; they never get the point in their evaluations and rely less and less on their own perceptions. This makes them dependent on their mother and she opens their eyes for them. The typical attributes of the “Jewish mother” are her eloquence and her affective ability to express herself. She tends to have emotional outbursts, is outspoken, and expresses her emotions and expectations freely and without inhibitions. Her presence is dominant and determined, and her style is usually melodramatic. She can chat, tell stories, discuss, and – as clever and astute as she is – always finds the sore point of the person with whom she is speaking. She gives compliments with much sensitivity. A further essential feature of the “Jewish mother” is her untiring commitment to the family and a resulting restlessness.”

The Daughter as the Opposite
Male authors from the third generation of Eastern Jewish immigrants ultimately also have shaped the customary stereotype of the “Jewish American Princess” (JAP), of which the most famous representative is generally seen as Brenda Patimkin in PhiIip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus (1959). The JAP is the offshoot, the daughter of the “Jewish mother”: She is sassy,  energetic, inconsiderate, dominant, articulate, emotional – and simultaneously also her complete opposite aspect as a totally un-Jewish creature who in a process of over-assimilation has apparently shed all traditional Jewish values related to the home, family, and common good. She completely refuses to acknowledge male authority and thereby commits an unforgiveable affront against the American pantheon of female virtues.
The image of the JAP was already fashioned by the male literary figures of the second generation; yet, they still sympathize (in view of the third generation women) with the daughters who are only interested in their own self-realization. The JAP is the reflection of the materialistic and spoiled young American woman who manipulates the world for her selfish concerns. Her primary goal and striving is to marry well. Based on their gender, the children of the “Jewish mother” differ greatly in how they deal with personal defeats. While the JAP always bears personal responsibility for her failures and unsuccessful endeavors, her brothers or potential husbands generally give their mother the blame for their failures. But since they themselves – as the sons of their mother – have produced this image, this may reflect the feeling of inner dependence and a lack of orientation, an incomplete detachment from the mother that is accompanied by a lacking positive identification with the father. It ultimately ends in their incompetent involvement in relationship with a woman. ●

Nicole Dreyfus is a journalist and lives in Zurich.